So Where Has Tom Been?

It’s now Saturday, September 11, and I’m in Iringa. Here’s what’s happened so far. I left Minneapolis on Monday, September 6. The flights from MSP to Amsterdam and Amsterdam to Dar Es Salaam were lengthy and uneventful. On the second flight we stopped in Arusha, TZ to drop off people going on safari or climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro and pick up those who had finished those adventures. We landed after dark so there was no chance to see the mountain. That was a disappointment.


We are so accustomed to everything happening with orderly precision according to plan. We are used to leaving Minneapolis on an early flight and having an afternoon meeting in Boston or Denver. Well things don’t always work that smoothly. The original plan was to spend one night in Dar and then drive to Iringa. At the last minute, we got an email that we needed to meet with a rice broker and stay one extra day in Dar to pick up two people who also needed to travel to Iringa. Well, there was some miscommunication about when Roger and Verna were leaving the US and arriving in Dar. So we stayed another day in Dar to see if they arrived on the next day’s flight. Yes! They arrived Thursday night and bright and early Friday morning we started the 8 hour drive to Iringa.

The rice broker visit was most interesting. Business is done somewhat differently in TZ. One of the farms we will visit grows rice. They harvested and delivered about 10 tons of rice to this rice broker. He shook hands with our person and said to come back in a few weeks to pick up the money for any rice he sold. There was no written contract, just a handshake. So, when we met with him, he handed over the first payment for rice sold. He had bags of rice from 100s of producers. I have no idea how he keeps track of how much rice was sold for our farm. There wasn’t a computer, calculator or spreadsheet anywhere to be found.

I took very few pictures in Dar since we were warned about theft and muggings. When you consider that the camera I carry might represent 1 or 2 year’s salary for the average worker, the prudent person might leave the camera back in the hotel.